The Cupboard Under the Stairs
by LilyIsAwesomerThanYou
Summary: Harry Potter grew up in a cupboard. At first he thought he deserved it. Then he realized that he didn't. Follows Harry's thoughts and life in his cupboard.


**Just something that popped into my head :)**

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At age one, he had no idea that his bedroom was the cupboard under the stairs. His aunt and uncle had shoved a makeshift crib through the small door and placed a tattered blanket inside it. After all, he was a baby, and regardless of how freakish they were certain that he would turn out to be, babies deserved better than a cardboard box.

He didn't know much else aside from the inside of that cupboard, but that wasn't such a huge inconvenience. After all, it was quiet and calm and when he screamed loud enough, he was held or fed. Of course he couldn't understand intentions yet, and didn't know the anger and frustration behind his relatives' actions. So life seemed good. Life seemed good.

oOoOo

At age two, he no longer benefited from the comfort of his crib. He was given a small cot that was placed on the ground and forced to sleep on it instead. It was thin and uncomfortable and the blanket never kept him warm, but it was a bed.

The cupboard was his safe place. Dudley was too young to even know that Harry was locked inside, and that was enough for him. Although he didn't have any toys to play with, he also wasn't aware that he was supposed to. His life consisted of darkness, sleep, and food, and for now, that was enough.

oOoOo

At age three, he began to like his cupboard more than the rest of the house. Dudley wasn't tall enough to reach the latch yet, and although he loved to bang his small, meaty fists on the outside of the door, he couldn't get inside. Harry sat on his cot with his legs crossed and smiled, looking up at the small grate that let some semblance of light through the door.

That was the year that he found his pet mouse, who chewed a small hole through the sideboard and nibbled on Harry's stale bread and cheese every once in a while. He named it James, and of course he had no idea the significance of the name.

oOoOo

At age four, he began to understand the feeling of hunger. He grew tentatively familiar with the sickening twist of his gut, with the sharp pang of his stomach whenever he went too long without food. Not that it was his choice, of course. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon only gave him dinner if he weeded the garden or did the dishes flawlessly, which wasn't very often. After all, he was too young to have steady hands or to realize that he had missed a patch of tiny, sprouting nuisances.

That was the year that his pet mouse died, and he found its small body inside of the rough hole in the back of the cupboard when he poked his finger inside one lonely night. He cried for two days and was denied dinner for a week for making too much noise. But that wasn't so unfair, right? It was his fault for not feeding James enough, wasn't it?

oOoOo

At age five, Dudley began to catch on to his parents' treatment of Harry. The boy poked Harry in the side when he knew his parents weren't looking, and sometimes even when they were. It wasn't as if they cared much anyways. He was finally tall enough to unlatch the door and terrorize Harry when the boy wanted nothing more than to sleep.

That was the year that Harry performed his first bout of accidental magic. Dudley had been teasing him when suddenly the cupboard door flew shut and locked itself and wouldn't open for anything. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon didn't even have to lock him in the cupboard as punishment; Harry was more than willing to stay inside for a few days. Of course, he didn't receive any meals, which was a downside, but at least he was free of his cousin.

oOoOo

At age six, Dudley learned how to punch, and Harry took the brunt of it. His glasses – which Aunt Petunia had brought home one day – broke repeatedly at the nose, and when his aunt grew weary of taping them back together, she bought him new ones, real ones with a real prescription. He hadn't gotten to pick them out, of course, so they were ugly and circular and black and made his face look much too thin and angular, but for the first time in forever, he could see properly, and that was good enough for him.

That was the year that he began dreaming about strange green lights and giant men on flying motorcycles and when he told his aunt and uncle, they nearly murdered him. From then on, he kept his dreams to himself, but he took great pleasure in drawing out the particularly memorable ones on the underside of the shelves lining the walls of his cupboard.

oOoOo

At age seven, the cupboard began to evolve into a room of torment. He was afraid of the dark, and every time the door slammed shut and the latch slid into place, he cried – silent tears, of course. He dared not risk enraging his relatives.

That was the year that Dudley began recruiting his friends for "Harry Hunting" and they chased Harry around the schoolyard and the neighborhood in order to pin him down and bloody up his face. Although he was fast, sometimes he was caught, and nothing compared to the anger of Aunt Petunia when he was caught "tracking blood all over her new floors." Not that there was blood anywhere near her floor, mind you. Only his nose was bleeding.

That was the year that he learned that crying did absolutely nothing for you, and that no one ever comes nor cares.

oOoOo

At age eight, Harry began to get nightmares. He woke up in a cold sweat for nights on end, his mind full of green light and his head aching. He was scared and alone, and he received little comfort from the nights that Uncle Vernon would throw open the door to the cupboard and growl menacingly at him. He always told him to be quiet, but Harry couldn't help it – they were his dreams and he was afraid.

That was the year that he began to lose hope. For as long as he could remember, he had buried deep down the belief that perhaps one day someone would rescue him, but it was quickly becoming clear that the possibility of that happening was nearly impossible. So he began to steel himself for the long years ahead of him, because everything was just starting to get bad.

oOoOo

At age nine, Harry didn't get to see his cupboard much. He was apparently deemed old enough to take on nearly all of the chores that needed to be done in the house. He had been assisting with the cooking for as long as he could remember, but suddenly he took over the task completely. He was constantly outside weeding the garden, painting the shed, or washing the windows while Dudley sat on the couch and watched television like the fat lump that he was.

That was the year that Uncle Vernon really began to get angry if everything wasn't done right, but it wasn't Harry's fault – not really. He shouldn't have been expected to handle everything, right? Regardless, he began to cherish the moments that he was allowed to sit inside the darkness of his cupboard because it meant that Uncle Vernon wouldn't yell at him for a few more minutes.

oOoOo

At age ten, Harry became well-acquainted with his cupboard again. The frequency of his bursts of accidental magic was increasing, much to the dismay and irritation of Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia. They locked him in his cupboard for days, weeks, even months at a time in an attempt to rid him of his "freakiness."

That was the first year that Harry began to truly realize that maybe he didn't deserve to be treated in the way that he was. But that certainly didn't stop him from believing that he was a useless freak.

oOoOo

At age eleven, Harry learned that maybe he was not, in fact, a useless freak. On the contrary, he – like his parents – was a wizard and all of his "freakiness" growing up was actually his magic accidentally making itself known. His relatives were furious at the thought of their nephew attending a school in which he was to learn magic, but there was no stopping him now. After all, he was Harry Potter, and apparently Harry Potter was important in the wizarding world.

That was the year that he bought a wand and an owl and boarded a train to a castle and learned how to defend himself. That was the year that one of his professors was possessed by the evil man who had once tried to kill him and his parents. Harry didn't spend much time in his cupboard that year. He was given a bedroom, which was still available to him upon his arrival from Hogwarts, and his old cupboard housed all of his school supplies, which were off-limits.

oOoOo

At age twelve, Harry learned how to pick the lock on his cupboard. Fred and George Weasley opened the door and stole all of his stuff when they took Harry away from his relatives. He stayed with the Weasleys for the rest of the summer and never looked back.

That was the year that he battled fame and a basilisk, and destroyed a piece of a man's soul without even realizing that he did it. That was the year that he rescued his best friend's little sister from the clutches of that evil man's soul. But then he returned back home and locked his stuff in the cupboard again.

oOoOo

At age thirteen, Harry blew up his aunt. He didn't even need his newfound lock-picking abilities to retrieve his trunk as he ran away – his magic blew the door to his cupboard wide open. He ran out the front door and never planned to return again.

That was the year that the rumored serial murderer on the loose turned out to be his caring godfather and Harry illegally helped the man escape the castle. That was the year he and Hermione meddled with time and the year that he learned how to cast a corporeal Patronus because every time the dementors approached, he could hear his parents' deaths.

oOoOo

At age fourteen, Harry began having dreams about Lord Voldemort again. He couldn't sleep and he wanted more than anything to be that little boy sleeping inside his cupboard again.

That was the year that his scar ached and his "teacher" entered his name in the goblet for the Triwizard Tournament. That was the year that he got his first taste of death in the form of his fellow Hogwarts classmate Cedric Diggory. That was the year that Lord Voldemort returned in a crumbling old graveyard and upon returning home, Harry stared at his cupboard for hours because that was where he wanted to be.

oOoOo

At age fifteen, Harry was alone.

That was the year that the Ministry called him a delusional liar and his friends turned their backs on him and his sadistic teacher used a Blood Quill on his hand. That was year that his dreams saved Mr. Weasley's life and as a result, he was forced to practice Occlumency with his most hated teacher. That was the year that his own brashness and stupidity got his godfather killed. That was the year that he would never forgive himself for, and when he finally returned home, he smashed that bloody two-way mirror and locked himself in his cupboard in the middle of the night and cried himself to sleep alone in the cramped space.

oOoOo

At age sixteen, Harry learned about Horcruxes. He watched the life of Tom Riddle as a child, and inadvertently found himself thinking of his own childhood, and his life under the stairs.

That was the year that he found a book belonging to the "Half-Blood Prince" and accidentally used a horrifying spell on Draco Malfoy. That was the year that Malfoy tried to poison Dumbledore, and Ron dated Lavender Brown, and Hermione got jealous. That was the year that they researched Horcruxes and when they came back, Dumbledore was murdered on the Astronomy tower by Snape (Harry had never really trusted him anyway). That was the year that everything really began to crash and burn.

oOoOo

At age seventeen, Harry shook hands with Dudley Dursley and then curled up in his cupboard under the stairs. He stared at the shelves and his crude drawings and thought about innocence and his eleven-year-old self.

That was the year – that was the _day_ that he locked that cupboard door behind him, walked out the front door, and never looked back.

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**Thanks! Please let me know what you thought :)**


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